Stunted
by DySolo
Summary: AU. Spencer Reid was never able to skip as many grades as he did in the show. Forcing him to go through four years of high school (and the torturous bullying that came with him) has changed him for the worse. Meeting Lila over a period of years might change him for the better.
1. Chapter 1

Spencer never knew freedom until he reached college at the age of sixteen. It wasn't the fact that he needed to stay in high school until then - his intelligence could have got him to the sanctuary of higher education way earlier in his teen years, if his mother had been able to be more aware. He didn't blame her, though. He knew about her illness - more than probably some of the doctors through the years who had treated her, but that's what happens when you live with it day in and day out and desperately need to understand why your mother...can't be there for you.

Before his father had left, Spencer had been able to skip two grades, even though his father disapproved of it, wanting his son to have a chance at "being normal", but Spencer knew that he was anything but normal and so did his classmates. Two years or four years, -or how ever many he could skipped - they treated him differently. Like a freak. Too smart for his own good. Too academically smart, too emotionally stunted. First year of high school, he was tied down on the football field. Second year, he learned not to speak - even though that really didn't help his cause. The third and the fourth? He doesn't even like to think about.

But college. College was amazing. Cal Tech was everything that he could have dreamed for as a child. He was surrounded by people who cared about their education, people who did not bully him just because he knew the answer, but encouraged him to continue, to explain because they wanted to know more. Because they needed to know more - because they were like him.

It takes him a year to get back to the person he felt like he should have been after the traumas of high school, but it's a good year. He gains friends who are patient and seem to understand. He works on a math degree, which doesn't really require for him to do much talking anyways. The ability to skip classes that he can test out of with ease makes the process go much more smoothly - he's not stuck in a class, having finished the curriculum during the first week and spending the rest of the semester, trying to survive the sneak attacks from fellow classmates. Not that he really imagines that would happen at Cal Tech, but it is his experience.

His second year at Cal Tech, he meets a man named Ethan, who reminds him of the kind of men that used to tease him. Other than the fact that he has the same intelligence as everyone around him. He smokes and drinks and he really needs to shave (but the latter is true of a lot of people at Cal Tech, definitely the Computer Science and Engineering programs). He makes it a mission to become Spencer's friend, not that Spencer really understands why. And for the first few months of his second year, he tries his best to ignore the man. He had learned his lesson in trusting people like that in high school. He was not going to have to re-learn it. But Ethan is consistent and charming and Spencer finds himself, finally agreeing to go to a bar with him. Although he does mention that he's not even legal yet, but Ethan just chuckles at him and tells him that he'll take care of it. It's the way that he says it that Spencer just believes him and then immediately feels kind of queasy about it - this find of fate in someone usually got him in trouble.

The bar is dark and the music isn't overwhelming as he would have imagined it to be - a muted jazz feeling. There's art on the wall, nothing that he recognizes either, so he assumes that it's local artist. Some of it is terrible - or well, to him, it looks terrible but he does notice some people looking at it, so maybe he's wrong. Ethan is late and he sits at a table, looking around at the type of people in the bar until a waitress tells him she needs the table. He checks his watch - Ethan is now 27 minutes late and Spencer decides to give him until the 30 minute mark before he retreats back to his safe spot - his Cal tech dorm.

"It's wonderful, isn't it?" A woman's voice from his side says, but she's alone. Or he thinks she's alone. He looks around, trying to find the person she's talking to because it can't be him. She laughs and he freezes.

"The painting," She says and he looks at her. A blonde girl, probably a year younger than he was is looking at him before her eyes move back to the canvas they are standing in front of. His eyes move to the painting as well. It's one of the ones he thought was awful, so he doesn't say anything.

"Don't talk much, do ya'?" She says before laughing again. "I'm Delilah. My dad owns this place." She gives out the information so easily, but he stays silent, unsure why she's talking to him. "Do you have a name, stranger?"

"Reid. Spencer. Spencer Reid." He stumbles over his own name and clenches, knowing that she's about to make fun of him.

"Well, Reid, Spencer, Spencer Reid," she teases, but it doesn't feel as... demeaning as it could have been. "What do you think?"

"about what?"

She laughs again. "About the painting."

He nods, his eyes going back to the painting and he stares at it, still unsure of what to say. He opens his mouth to admit that he's clueless, but a hand clasps on his shoulder which he pulls away from, turning to see Ethan there, checking out the girl in front of him.

"Hey, man, whose your friend."

"Too young for you," She teases before turning back to Spencer. "Think about it, Reid Spencer, Spencer Reid."

The two men watch as she walks away, for different reason.


	2. Chapter 2

Spencer doesn't see her again that night. Well, he sees her, speaking to her father (or so he thinks) behind the bar. He sees men who seem older than Ethan flirting with her. He sees how she laughs at them as her father rolls his eyes and asks one of them men to leave (or atleast that what it looks like). He sees how this makes the blonde roll her eyes - yes, the man was definitely her father, giving the same reaction to him as he gave to her, complete with the one eyebrow raise before the rolling of the eyes - before she disappears for the rest of the night. He sees her, but he never gets another to interact with her. Well, that's not entirely true either. They do catch eyes once when the men are flirting with her. Spencer immediately breaks contact, but not before he realizes that she has light colored eyes. It's impossible to tell from the distance with the lighting if they're blue and green or even grey-ish, but he can definitely deduce they weren't brown.

Ethan notices and teases him, offers to buy him a drink so he can have some "liquid courage" to talk to her, but Spencer denies the offer, still trying to figure out why the woman was even talking to him. There was always a reason why a woman spoke to him, dating back to junior high when the girl sitting next to him realized that he made straight As. Then there was Harper, the beautiful brunette that he had had a crush on sophomore year, who had used his crush to lure him to one of the worst days of his life. Followed by Alexis Lisbon and the cheerleaders of Shadow Ridge High School, who made it their mission to make him feel as bad as possible about anything they found "strange" about him - his hair, the way he talked (when he still talked), his height. Sure, the women of Caltech were different, but this girl was not a CalTech girl. She was... possibly still a high schooler and he knew all about high school girls. She had a reason and he just had to figure it out. He mentions this to Ethan and the older man calls him paranoid and that he should just have a good time, but Spencer ignores him and eventually, the conversation turns to something else.

He doesn't stop thinking about the woman though. She had mentioned her dad had owned the bar, but that still didn't explain what she was doing there. An establishment that's basic purpose was to serve alcohol was not the place for a 16, 17? year old girl and by the way, her father glared at him (and any man who flirted with her during her time visible in the bar) after their conversation (yes, he had caught that look), the man obviously cared a lot for the girl. So, why wasn't she at home? And honestly, did it even matter? He knew that he was over thinking the situation, but it was odd and Spencer liked odd things that didn't really make sense when you looked at them at their face value. He knows that there is no way to solve the equation in his head without more information, but that involves speaking her again and after a week passes and Ethan makes no mention of the bar again, Spencer feels hopeless.

It takes 19 days for Ethan to mention the bar again and Spencer agrees to go with him again. When they arrive, his eyes scan the bar, but she wasn't there. He tries not to look disappointed, but Ethan's almost as good as reading people as he is. He chuckles at the younger man and moves to sit at the bar. Spencer joins him and glances around again. She's not there.

"Hey, where's the blonde chick?" He asks the bartender, obviously forgetting the fact that she was the man's daughter, "Wasshername, Reid?"

Spencer doesn't say anything, he just glances between the men. Ethan turns to him, waiting before he turns back to the bartender when it's obvious that he's not going to say anything. The bartender ignores him as well, obviously annoyed that a 21+ year old man was asking about his underage daughter. When Ethan gets his scotch, he doesn't seem to care about the girl any longer, more focused on getting a little buzzed. He once told Spencer that it allowed him to think clearer, without reservations that his ideas may be too out there to say them. He quoted Hemingway's "Write Drunk, Edit Sober", with an explanation on that it worked with anything. Spencer was not entirely sure that he agreed, but didn't say anything, at the time, he was just hoping that the man would mention the bar.

It takes two hours for Ethan to get to the point of inebriation that he goes from focused and talkative about psychology and sociology and criminal justice to just wanting to find a pretty girl to talk to. It's usually the same time that Spencer slips out of the bar, knowing when he's no longer necessary. He doesn't know why he stays this time, but after 20 minutes, he stands to leave.

"Delilah's with her mother." The bartender tells him and Spencer turns back to the bar. "You're the Spencer Reid kid, yeah?"

He nods, silently.

"She wanted to tell me that if you came back that she's with her mother. She'll be back at the beginning of the next semester." His voice gives off the fact that he doesn't want to rely the information, but Spencer deduces that he feels like he must. He doesn't blame the man, he felt the same obligation to answer the woman and he barely knew her. He nodded again.

"Thank you," he murmured.

"She's sixteen." The man warns and Spencer unders the unspoken message. He had come into the bar with a man over 21, the bartender/father could only assume that he was over 21 himself, although Spencer had never ordered anything that needed an age verification. He feels the need to explain that he had not yet reached the age of 19, but he doesn't. The silence is tense and he escapes from it, making a note to find a way to return to the bar.

* * *

**AN: **I made a change in the previous chapter, due to the fact that I haven't decided the timing of the story yet. It's either summer or winter, so mentioning that Spencer would be turning 18 in a couple months became strange. He might be 18 now, he might be 17. I'm still trying to decide. Sorry for any confusion.


End file.
